Seeing the Seeds of Algebraic Thinking in Young Children's Game Playing Activity

• In Event: Poster Session 7
  In Poster Session: Learning Sciences SIG Poster Session

Abstract

Children face a large and well-documented discontinuity when faced with middle and high school algebra content. However, we contend that children have copious “seeds of algebraic thinking” in their daily, lived experience that is largely ignored and not leveraged, in part, because researchers and teachers don’t know how to “see” this mathematical potential of students. We report findings from a recent study aimed at empirically uncovering some of this richness in naturalistic contexts. In particular, we report instances of early algebraic thinking: intuitive, informal ways of thinking that can potentially be refined into algebraic thinking that arise as young children play games with their caregivers.

Authors

• Mariana Levin, Western Michigan University

• Janet Dawn Kim Walkoe, University of Maryland